Climate Change Will Damage The Ozone Layer

It has been known for a long time that unmitigated climate change is going to have a devastating impact on human health; through higher temperatures, larger and stronger storms, shifting patterns of precipitation, drought, agricultural failure, nuclear disasters, emerging diseases, sea rise, greatly increased flooding, etc.

And now researchers have added to that with evidence that it may significantly contribute to future ozone depletion.

A team of researchers led by James G. Anderson, the Philip S. Weld Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry, “are warning that a newly-discovered connection between climate change and depletion of the ozone layer over the U.S. could allow more damaging ultraviolet (UV) radiation to reach the Earth’s surface, leading to increased incidence of skin cancer.”

“In the system described by Anderson and his team, water vapor injected into the stratosphere by powerful thunderstorms converts stable forms of chlorine and bromine into free radicals capable of transforming ozone molecules into oxygen. Recent studies have suggested that the number and intensity of such storms are linked to climate changes, Anderson said, which could in turn lead to increased ozone loss and greater levels of harmful UV radiation reaching the Earth’s surface, and potentially higher rates of skin cancer.”

“If you were to ask me where this fits into the spectrum of things I worry about, right now it’s at the top of the list,” Anderson said. “What this research does is connect, for the first time, climate change with ozone depletion, and ozone loss is directly tied to increases in skin cancer incidence, because more ultraviolet radiation is penetrating the atmosphere.”

According to the researchers though we don’t know how this process will evolve over time.

“We don’t know what the development of this has been — we don’t have measurements of this deep convective injection of water into the stratosphere that go back in time,” Anderson said.

“But the best guide for the evolution of this is to look at the research that connects climate change with severe storm intensity and frequency, and it’s clear that there is a developing scientific case that the addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere is increasing climate change, and in turn driving severe storm intensity and frequency.”

“While it’s impossible to know how many skin cancer cases may be related to ozone depletion over the U.S., the link between ozone loss and increased incidence of the disease has been extensively studied, Anderson said.”

“There has been a major effort by the medical community to define the relationship between decreases in ozone and the subsequent increases in skin cancer,” he said. “The answer is quite clear — if you multiply the fractional decrease in ozone protection by about three, you get the increase in skin cancer incidence. There are 1 million new skin cancer cases in the U.S. annually — it’s the most common form of cancer, and it’s one that’s increasing in spite of all the medical research devoted to it.”

And perhaps more importantly, Increased UV radiation is a problem for many important crops, “particularly staple crops grown for human consumption — such as wheat, soybeans and corn — could suffer damage to their DNA, Anderson said.”

“Though they had worked since the mid-1980s to investigate ozone depletion in the Arctic and Antarctic, by the early-2000s, Anderson’s team had turned their attention to climate studies. In particular, they were working to understand how the convective clouds — updrafts that cause storms to build high into the sky — contribute to the creation of cirrus clouds.”

“It was in the process of looking at that mechanism that we came to this unexpected observation — that the convective clouds in these storm systems over the U.S. are reaching far deeper into the stratosphere that we ever expected,” Anderson said.

“While earlier tests performed in the Arctic had demonstrated that water vapor was a key component in creating the ‘free-radical’ compounds that break down ozone, Anderson said the latest finding is much more troubling, because it suggests the process can happen at much higher temperatures than initially suspected.”

“The bottom line is that if you increase the water vapor concentration, you actually increase the threshold temperature for executing this chemical conversion — from the stable forms of chlorine to the free radical form,” Anderson said. “If the amount of water vapor and the temperature over the U.S. satisfies the conditions for rapid conversion of inorganic chlorine to this free-radical form, we’ve got a real problem, because the chemistry is identical to what we previously demonstrated is taking place over the Arctic.”

“Also surprising, he added, was the realization that, to throw water vapor high into the atmosphere, storms needn’t be unusually large.”

“We have hundreds of measurements world-wide addressing the photochemical structure controlling ozone, but only a limited number of flights over the U.S. in summer,” he said. “The flights were studying average storms over the middle-west, and of the 20 observations we made over the U.S., about half demonstrated significant penetration into the stratosphere,” he said.

“The next step in the research, Anderson said, is to conduct a series of tests to confirm whether the free-radical form of chlorine and bromine are present in the stratosphere at significantly elevated levels in the presence of convectively-injected water vapor.”

“In my mind, this is not just a broad public health issue,” Anderson said. “This is about actually being able to step out into the sunlight — it’s about your children and your children’s health. Of course, we don’t know how rapidly the frequency and intensity of these storms will increase, so we can’t place a time scale on this problem, but the core issue here is quite straightforward and simple, because we understand this chemistry.”

The research was just published in the July 27 issue of the journal Science.

About the Author

James Ayre 's background is predominantly in geopolitics and history, but he has an obsessive interest in pretty much everything. After an early life spent in the Imperial Free City of Dortmund, James followed the river Ruhr to Cofbuokheim, where he attended the University of Astnide. And where he also briefly considered entering the coal mining business. He currently writes for a living, on a broad variety of subjects, ranging from science, to politics, to military history, to renewable energy. You can follow his work on Google+.

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http://gravatar.com/philcoop8192 Phil Cooper

Two words on the content of this article: Junk Science

There have been big storms on this planet for billions of years, yet life survives thrives. Articles such as this have no purpose but to separate people from their possessions and their freedom.

By the way Kitty, you should have paid better attention in science classes in high school.

Kitty

People, keep on populating. Nobody wants to address the real problem! OVER Population!!!

Mike Franklin

It’s almost like we’ve devolved to the dark ages. We have a church; the global warming church, that has a gospel. We have a inquisition that disallows opinions to the contrary. The media is like the clergy, constant bombarding the people with guilt trips and threats of what will happen if we disobey.

For one, the media presents the “skeptic’s” argument FAR more than is warranted by the science. While nearly 100% of publishing climate scientists say one thing, the media often portrays their point as if it is just 1 side of an equal 2-sided debate. The media actually does the OPPOSITE of what you are implying.

As far as the violence: it’s the deniers who consistently send threats and such to climate scientists and people who write about climate science. There’s no concern of you getting burned at the stake, and it’s simply absurd that you would even bring such language into this discussion.

Please, step back from the extreme metaphors a bit and look at the science!

jabberwolf

This is ONE study and why hasnt this been happening more in other regions where there have been hurricanes and MUCH larger weather systems.
Yes it does contribute to ozone loss, but the study is flawed when its reviewed by peer research and apt comparisons to other locations which much larger systems!!

In fact there are MORE studies that show that high level moisture might reflect more sunlight away from the Earth, causing a cooling effect. The more energy in the atmosphere, the more moisture, the more high level water, the more reflection, thus a cooling effect. This makes much more sense than 1 study that doesnt take into account the rest of the atmospheric events. Thats why the research is so berated. They never seem to take into account all the results of other studies, and other data.

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